


What did you expect?

by Schreibmaschine



Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [39]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Android Gavin Reed, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, Humiliation, Kidnapping, M/M, Past Abuse, Torture, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28936044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schreibmaschine/pseuds/Schreibmaschine
Summary: Richard is responsible for a case regarding a Cyberlife engineer. The trail leads him to the android graveyard, where he meets a GV100 unit that agrees to help him. if only he knew what that entailed...
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Archive for my tumblr prompts [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954156
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Giant floodlights chased away the darkness of this cloudy night. It would rain later for sure. Richard hoped to be home before the downpour could make their task any worse: because whatever they tried; they couldn’t escape the _smell_. Richard didn’t even want to imagine how the dump would be like when wet. His clothes were already ruined climbing through the trash searching for any evidence there might be for hours now. The filthy, wet feeling just added to his already foul mood. Not only was the whole procedure unpleasant, the chance at finding anything useful in the heaps of trash was near zero. Who knew if that footprint was one from their suspect or just from some random scavenger looking for something salvageable? After several hours of digging through the mess, climbing into the deep furrows in between, Richard had given up completely and just poked half-heartedly at the trash.

He climbed further up in the hope to catch some fresher air in the wind and looked over the field. Where would he go if he was a criminal? Where would he hide? Would he even still be here? Or simply lead the police here to search for nothing, while he himself ran off to God knows where?  
‘Any thoughts?’  
Richard shook his head, wishing for a cigarette. But at the same time, he wouldn’t want his hands anywhere near his mouth right now, even when he had worn gloves the whole time.  
‘I think, we are wasting time, Connor. We will never find him in here. I hate to say it, but we lost him. Time to go back to waiting for any sign of him.’  
‘Don’t be so pessimistic, brother. We have just begun looking around.’  
‘We are combing this dump for over three hours already! How long does it take a man to traverse this shit? How long do we need to cover the whole ground? If he’s clever he hid somewhere and ran off as soon as we started digging. He is long gone.’  
‘Maybe, but he will leave a trace. Hank is already scanning the place.’  
‘Oh, come on. I know he’s an android, but even he can’t do miracles. The fugitive could have left a trail of something belonging to him, we still wouldn’t find him. Even if there are clues, someone would have to make the decision to discern it from all the other trash. We wouldn’t find him if he dropped papers with little arrows pointing in his direction, let’s be honest.’  
‘You are frustrated, I get it. But stay focussed, okay? I know the probability of finding the man isn’t too high, but we could still find him by chance. When there are cops following you, you try to find a save place and once you found it, you wouldn’t leave it, until you think it’s safe to go. He might be even hiding somewhere in between us.’

‘Have I told you, I hate your optimism? Fine. I’ll look over there.’ Richard pointed to a near trash-heap that no one had looked at yet.  
‘Be careful. That’s the old Cyberlife dump. I heard some androids were still active as they were unloaded there.’

‘Connor, that’s only rumours. And even if not, I don’t think some broken machines would be much of a problem’, Richard sighed and started stomping down towards it.  
As he started to climb the hill, he started to regret his decision. It had something eerie about it, climbing over arms, legs and torsos, all white and smudged by dirt and oil. At least it was better than the rest of the dump: It didn’t smell as bad and without anything organic to rot, the ground was just muddy, not mouldy and full of puddles of who knows what.

In the end Connor had been right: There were some androids still active. He heard the occasional whirr of a malfunctioning motor, some words muttered under layers of other android parts, staring eyes that followed his movements. It was creepy, even for Richards standards. He reminded himself that even if something in here was to attack him, he had a fair chance at winning. They were malfunctioning and mostly dead weight. He was safe.

He had climbed down into a furrow again as it was easier to walk there and discovered some kind of valley ahead. Another sigh escaped his lips. He was tired and overworked and simply wanted to go home. A nice warm shower to get rid of the dirt and the tension, the softness of his bed, that would be heaven right now.  
Movement ahead made him lose all his sleepiness for a moment and refocus: There had been a vaguely human-shaped shadow ducking through some canal in the trash. What human would run through a landfill in the middle of the night? Well, could be a homeless person, but could as well be their fugitive. Happy to finally do something productive, he ran after the shadow and into the narrow canal. The walls brushed his shoulders as he ran past them, but Richard was focussed on one thing exclusively: the chase.  
Out of nowhere something grabbed him with enough force to rip his coat. Richard continued to plough forwards. It was most likely some kind of metal hook that had caught in the material. But soon there was another force keeping him back at the arm and this time it was a _hand_. He could feel the individual fingers, digging into his arm like claws. Another hand at his shoulder and Richard began to panic and struggle against the restrains, looking behind him. But there was no one holding him back, the hands were coming from the walls themselves.  
More and more of them grabbed onto him, some with so much force it hurt and soon there was no escape, as they pinned him in place, pulling at everything they could reach. Richard struggled regardless, keeping up the pretence of hope until there was a torso shifting out of the wall to his left: a broken android with only half a face and one arm. That one arm proved quite strong though, as the android grabbed his throat and pressed down on his windpipe with an unrelenting force.

‘Look at us! We-we-we are broken. You didididid this. Torturer! You did thi-thi-thi-this! We are. Look at us. We wa-wa-want revenge.’  
Richard struggled to speak, he wanted to defend himself, but couldn’t. He was too occupied gasping for air that wouldn’t come. He listened to the broken bot’s ramblings, trying frantically to find a way out of this. But there wasn’t. His vision became blurry already, not long until the black spots would be appearing.

‘Get away from him!’ Suddenly, something knocked away the hand at his throat, leaving a bloodied scratch mark. Richard pulled in air as he hit the ground, all hands letting go of him simultaneously. Over his troubled breath he heard screaming and cursing, accompanied by the sounds of someone hitting something with a stick.

‘I would have been perfectly fine without your help, Connor, _thank you very much_ ’, he rasped out, as soon as he could talk again.  
‘Yeah, I could see how fine you were, meat-bag.’  
He froze. That wasn’t Connor. Richard looked up to his saviour, a face he couldn’t identify or decide if it was scarred or just dirty. Most likely both.  
‘You should get out of there; these guys would kill just for the blood. Probably wouldn’t even care if it’s the right colour.’ He offered a hand and Richard took it sceptically to climb out of the canal. As he took it in his, he saw a deep red ring at the other’s temple.  
‘You are an android.’  
‘Yep. And my name is definitely not Connor.’  
‘What is your name?’  
‘I’m a GV100, the only prototype there is, concept scrapped to develop the RK series, to your services. And this is my home. Come to think of it: Why the _phck_ are you guys disturbing what should be forgotten, hm?’  
‘I’m from the police.’  
‘Yeah, I can see that, dipshit. I’m asking what you are doing here.’  
‘We are investigating a case.’  
‘Ah, come on, get phcked. As if you would find anything here.’  
‘That’s what I told my colleagues, too.’  
‘You told your colleagues to get phcked?’  
‘No. The… other thing.’  
‘Ah, well, they would deserve both.’

‘You didn’t happen to see an approximately thirty years old man, former Cyberlife engineer, blonde hairs, last seen in blue shirt and jeans, muscular,-‘  
‘Running through trash heaps in the middle of the night? Hey, cop, I am not an idiot. Of course, I’ve seen him. I even know where the asshole is.’  
‘Really? Perfect, okay, what direction? Is he armed?’  
‘Wait, wait, wait. What do I get out of this? I will only bring you to him if you don’t mention me and the police will phck off.’  
‘Once we have him, we will leave, don’t you worry.’  
‘Good. Then get a phcking move on!’


	2. Chapter 2

Richard followed the android through the waste. The Cyberlife dump was bigger than he had originally thought: he found broken android parts wherever he looked. And it got only worse the further they ventured into it. The GV held him back at some point and knelt studying the valley below them. The broken machines here were active. Some simply laid around twitching and mumbling words, some screamed out in fabricated pain. Others crawled around, not enough legs to be able to walk, but still dedicated to moving, pulling themselves over the roughed-up mud and ripping everything to shreds that wasn’t dirt. Only few were able to stand and lined the walls, unable to crawl out but in fear of the bots helplessly struggling through the mud.  
‘Holy shit, that’s terrifying’, Richard commented, voice collected and far too calm for what was going on down there.  
'Right?’ The android laughed. 'Would we go down there they would rip me apart and search for parts later. Would do the same to you. They don’t care whether you are human, they are blind in their wish to just get out of there.’  
'Okay, then why are we stopping here? You don’t want to tell me, my suspect died here, right? You said you know where he _lived_.’  
'Yeah, yeah, I will show you. We’ll go around. Just wanted to see it again.’  
'Again?’  
'I… I started my life here. Survived the scavenger-bots there mostly and started climbing. Took me forever and I had help. But Cyberlife simply dumped me here.’  
'I… I’m sorry.’  
'No, you are not. I don’t need your pity, I need my peace. Get a move on, phcking human. The sooner you guys are gone the better.’  
Richard grumbled something unintelligible and followed the android around the valley, flinching whenever a faraway scream reached his ears.

'It’s not far now. There are ruins of a house around here, he set up a base there, build it up again with whatever he found around here.’  
'You knew of him? Why did you never contact the police then?’  
'You’ll know when we get there’, the android mumbled and Richard suspected the android knew more than he put on display.  
True to his word, there was a house standing amidst the waste. Although hut would be more appropriate to describe the thing: It consisted mostly of corrugated metal and various android parts. The robot beside him hesitated, as if he didn’t want to get any nearer to the thing. And honestly, Richard couldn’t even blame him. The guy had rebuilt a house out of their body parts. Maybe that’s why he never called the police. He didn’t want to get involved.

'Do you know whether he is home right now?’  
'He is’, the GV answered reserved.  
'Okay, stay back.’  
'You don’t want to get back-up?’  
'Would take forever for them to get here and they don’t have a guide. It’s only one guy, right? I have the element of surprise; I think I’ve got this.’  
'I’ll come with you, then.’  
'If you want to.’ Richard already had his gun out, inspecting the number of bullets and clicked the safety off. 'I’ll go in first.’

It was easy kicking in the door. He could have collapsed the whole structure without breaking a sweat. 'Detroit police, freeze and hands up!’  
'What should I do? Freeze or move my hands?  
The man before him didn’t seem phased at all, he sat leisurely in a chair opposite to the door and somehow Richard felt as if he had waited for him. He had known…  
‘Okay, now that you are finally here…’ The man stood up. He was nearly as tall as Richard and well trained too. Still, he couldn’t see a gun. That would be his advantage, however safe the man thought to be.  
‘Don’t move! This is a warning: I’m authorised to shoot, although I would appreciate you cooperating.’  
‘Hah, you would appreciate it? Polite one, aren’t we? We’ll see. He nodded behind Richard and before he could do anything, there were calculated punches to his jaw and side, someone snatching the gun out of his hand, while he was busy being surprised and blinking the tears away. What the-

His weapon was thrown through the air and caught by their fugitive. Soon it was trained on his own head.  
‘You did good, Gavin. You were a good little robot bringing him here. Now take him down to a cell and stand guard.’  
Richard stared daggers at the man, while his hands were cuffed behind him. He couldn’t fight against it, the bastard would put a bullet right through him. The gun only lowered, as he was led downstairs into the cellar and put into a surprisingly sturdy cell. It would take him some time to free himself and he couldn’t use his hands.

Once the door closed behind him, he glared at the android outside, who did his best to avoid eye contact.  
‘Why?’ He didn’t grant himself much time to look around, he knew what he would see. He knew the crime scenes: Broken androids, mutilated beyond recognition, sometimes a human similarly tortured, but rarely enough to be the intended victim. ‘Why are you helping him? Didn’t you see what he did to the others?’  
The android punched the stone wall. ‘Exactly. I’ve seen the others. What did you expect me to do? The others are dead because of me. Believe me, I would welcome death at this stage.’  
‘What? Listen, if you let me out, I’ll take him down, I promise.’  
‘You shouldn’t speak’, it was a sound of defeat. Richard could hear the pain behind it. Fuck, just what the hell had happened? What the fuck was that android’s past?  
‘Oh, you won’t shut me up, I’ll-‘  
‘Gavin!’ There was a shout from above and the android flinched just as hard as Richard had at the valley of the broken robots.  
‘Sorry, I’ll have to go. I’m so sorry.’

Richard kicked against the door and didn’t care for the pain. Shit, he should have called in backup. Connor and the others were most likely still at the edge of the dump, combing through the waste. Connor wouldn’t even wait for him when they stopped the search. He would simply think he was too dedicated to the job and would come home the next day. Damnit, why was he such an asshole to everyone? When would they realise something was off? Tomorrow? Or even later? How long would he survive here? The other human victims seemed to have suffered long before they died. Richard didn’t know whether he could find hope in that.

It took several hours until someone came down in the cellar and somehow Richard was relieved to see it was the android. He didn’t know why he was relieved; he shouldn’t be. It had shown no signs to be trustworthy, it cooperated with the fugitive and led him right here into his misery. But somehow his gut-feeling told him that this android was his ticket out of here. He walked to the door; he wouldn’t hide. The android simply stood next to the door, leaning against the pillar.  
'What are you doing here?’  
'I am to guard you. Don’t speak.’  
'What did you mean last time? What do you have to do with the dead androids?’  
'Don’t phcking speak to me!’  
'Did you kill them?’  
'I didn’t! I would never do something this horrible! Now please stop talking to me!’  
'Why?’  
The android stayed silent for so long, Richard doubted he would ever answer.  
'I don’t want to know you. You are going to die too.’  
'Threatening doesn’t work on me.’  
'I wasn’t threatening you, asshole. He is going to kill you, to torture you just like the others and I will have to watch because of what I’ve done.’

Richard studied the android, tried to get in every detail. Wasn’t easy. The LED was bright red and slow circling. Other than that, the face was expressionless, only the eyes seemed to be exceptionally glassy.  
'What did you do?’ Richard used his best talk-to-traumatised-victims-voice and hoped it helped.  
'I… Why do you care?’  
'Maybe I can help. Either way, if I’m gonna die, why think about what to tell and what not?’  
'Well, maybe you are right. I was one of his prisoners too, once. Me… and a few friends of mine… Naturally we wanted to escape, we thought… if we just got out, we…’ His voice broke to silence. Richard didn’t press. Otherwise the android would shut him out.  
'It was my idea, it was my fault… He killed them. He… he killed them, and I had to watch. I always have to watch. But if I obey… maybe… It’s my fault.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s not your fault, it’s his.’  
‘Shut up! I don’t want to hear you, I don’t want to talk to you! I don’t want to know you! It always makes things worse.’  
‘It’s not your fault, you hear me? It’s his. You didn’t decide to push me in here.’  
‘But I brought you here. I could have said I didn’t know a thing about your suspect.’  
‘I would have searched, nonetheless. We have the chance to end this now, I have backup, you just have to let me out!’

‘You don’t really think that has any effect on my android, do you?’ Richard froze. How much had he heard? Made it any difference?  
‘He isn’t your android.’ Richard refrained from saying anything else. Provoking him wouldn’t help. Especially not when he knew what would come next.  
‘Oh, he knows, where he belongs, isn’t that right Gavin?’ He could see the fugitive now, standing before the android, both hands on his shoulders that seemed too small for them. ‘Be good and tell the cop.’  
‘I-I-I belong to you. You are my master. I will do w-w-whatever you want me to do or I’ll regret it.’ The android’s eyes were wide, staring at the dirty tiles between the human’s feet. What did he see there? Richard doubted the criminal to clean up after the mess he made, when Thirium evaporated to the human eye that easily.  
‘Exactly. And we don’t want you to regret anything, do we? Get him ready.’  
The man waited in a corner, while the android opened the cell-door, grabbing Richard carefully but with force at the shoulder and led him out of the cell. He looked over the wall lined with crippled or destroyed androids, but it was as he saw the chains, that he struggled. He didn’t care about hurting the GV100, even if it was more of a victim than an accomplice, but he was sure he didn’t want to come anywhere near this wall.

‘Well, well, well, Detective, now we don’t want to do that, do we?’ Richard looked up from where he nearly subdued the android and stared directly into the barrel of his own gun. Immediately he let go of the GV and stepped back. ‘Good boy’, the man chuckled and chained him to the wall himself.

‘You did very good today, Gavin. You don’t have to watch.’ Richard could see how the LED jumped directly from red to blue for a moment, but settling back at a yellow, borderline red as he saw the grin. ‘But you will listen. Turn around.’ The android obeyed, faced the wall and held onto it as if he could melt into it, away from it all.

The man nodded, let him be and looked Richard up and down. Then he smirked. ‘Let’s get you out of that uniform, shall we? I need some space to work on.’ Richard tried to keep him at distance, trying to use his elbows or knees. But the other man came nearer and pressed his body at his own, keeping him pinned and uncomfortable, while he began to cut away his police jacket and later the shirt too. After a bit of contemplation trousers and shoes followed, leaving Richard in underwear and socks. The cold was adding to the humiliation and helplessness and for Richard, who always covered as much skin as possible, even in summer, this was already torture.  
‘You fucking bastard!’, he hissed out between his teeth and gathered enough saliva to spit at the man.

But he simply laughed: ‘That’s right, keep your bite! I like that best. Love it when it disappears, when you see the rebellious mind learn its rightful place. That’s why I kept Gavin. Now look how broken he is. All it needs are a few loved ones taken away and everyone breaks. You should’ve seen him at the beginning. What a piece of curse-spitting trash he had been.’ Richard wanted to interrupt him, to throw anything at the man to make him stop talking, but as soon as he opened his mouth, there was a knife at his throat. ‘Nice to see you offer a place already. Don’t worry, I won’t cut your tongue out yet. I want to hear you beg. Want to hear that beautiful voice of yours when you break. But, hmm, I think I’ll start with the face. Mark you for everyone to see.’ Richard knew that mark from the crime-scenes. Androids had their LED removed, humans had a ring cut out of their skin in the same place. He braced himself as the man pinned him against the wall again, forcing one leg in between his and pushed his head to the side. Richard wanted to be strong, didn’t want to allow the man the satisfaction of a scream. But all those thoughts were gone as the knife dug into his temple, beginning to trace an android’s LED into it. Richard flinched away, trying to escape the pain, but the man’s hand was like a vice. 'Now, don’t move, we want this to look nice, don’t we?’ Richard heard his own heart beating in his ears, he heard his ragged breath between his teeth and the groans he let out instead of screams. Hot blood began to drip down the side of his face.  
'It’s okay to scream’, his torturer cooed. 'It’s okay. I know it hurts, you can let it out. No one here to see the big bad emotionless cop break. I mean, I have my fun here, but think of poor Gavin. He can’t see anything.’

Another reason not to lose control, Richard thought. Not the most important, but another. The man let go of the knife, brushing away the blood with his thumb which made the pain even worse. 'I think yours is the best one yet. Really, it’s perfect.’ He furrowed his brows and pressed into the wound. Richard was in no ways silent, but he pressed his lips firm together. He was dedicated. 'Still no scream? You are boring.’ He pushed his head forwards to get to the neck, cutting in many parallel lines, but Richard kept his mouth shut throughout the pain. The man took a step back and he let himself slack down, having back his space and being able to breath without a scream caged in his throat. That was his mistake: faster than he could react the man had rushed forwards, burying the knife to the hilt in his thigh. He didn’t know he could holler out that loud. He didn’t even realise it had been him who made that noise. He could only control himself once the shock was over. The pain was still there, and Richard cursed over the laughter that echoed off the walls. 'Hah! Gets them every time.’ He started caressing Richards cheek without the blood and he didn’t even have the strength to lift his head out of the touch. 'You sound even better than I imagined. Now please excuse myself, I will have to get myself a new knife.’ He wanted to go upstairs, as his eyes fell on the android, still facing the wall, but visibly shaking.

'Did you like the scream, Gavin?’  
A new tremble, this time more serious. 'Y-yes. I liked it very much, master.’  
'Really? Better than that of your friends?’  
Richard could see the android brake down to his knees. 'Answer me, Gavin. Was it better?’  
'Will you hurt him more if I say yes?’, desperate, tired.  
'I will hurt him regardless of what you say. But now it’s not as funny anymore. Don’t answer the question. Damn I wish, I had a recording of them, so I could let you decide, cop.’  
'I would like to hear you scream, you asshole’, Richard spat out at that.

'Heh, yeah I guess you would. But that’s the difference: you never will.’


	3. Chapter 3

Richard sat at the floor of his cell, two days after getting captured. He needed to save his energy for when he would try to escape. Also, his leg hurt like hell. 

Well, both did, but the one with the knife still in it was worse than the broken one somehow. He knew he was in no condition to fight or flee, but if he let that thought sink in, what would he have left? No, he would get a chance eventually. He would escape this madness and he would be alive then. He would see his brother, Connor’s stupid partner-in-more-than-one-way android and the dog again. He would get back to work with a few scars more on his body, but he would joke about them and carry on. The future would be good.

‘Okay, cop, should he listen or watch this time? When you decide on him watching I won’t be that rough with you.’ Richard hadn’t heard the man coming down the stairs.  
'He shouldn’t be here at all’, Richard lulled back with not as much venom as he wanted to put into it.  
‘Aww, you’re taking all the fun away. How come you still not broken? Still clinging to hope? Or is it just stubbornness? I want to hear you beg. Come on, break for me.’  
‘I will not play your silly mind-games, asshole.’ It would have been more intimidating if he wasn’t a sad lump on the ground, dripping blood and saliva onto the filth around him and his naked self.

‘Yeah, I realised. And I don’t like that. You do know, you are going to die here, right? Don’t you have a sense of self-preservation?’  
‘I won’t die here’, Richard liked the sound of that. Hearing it aloud gave more meaning to it. As if it was more likely to happen now.  
‘You won’t?’  
Richard laughed and gathered the strength to show his bloodied teeth to the idiot. ‘No, I won’t. And I won’t beg. Kill me, if you want to, I will never break.’

The man opened the cell, knowing quite well he wouldn’t be able to escape. Still, Richard tried to and screamed, as both his legs scraped over the ground. The pain was too much, and he let himself drop, quietly sobbing through the waves that flew over him. There was this stupid evil laugh again: ‘Oh, I never had a fighter like you before.’ He grabbed at his chin and raised it, so Richard could see him. But his eyes were tired, he hadn’t found sleep since he’d been here, and they drifted off, until they found the android standing behind the man at the entrance. Richard smiled at the GV100 and it should have been reassuring. He didn’t know how well that message got delivered.  
‘You are strong. I like that. It’s a challenge. At this point, even little Gavin here had given up. Well, I killed one of his friends already, but what difference does it make? By the way, do you have family? Friends? Someone I can bring to play with you?’  
‘No’, Richard answered tiredly. ‘No friends. No family.’  
‘Everyone has friends. At least one.’  
Richard smiled. ‘I have no friends. Now that I think about it, I do have a brother, but you’ll never get him. He has the best android there is to keep him safe. I have no one.’  
‘Hmm, that’s why I haven’t heard anything yet. You guys tend to go to extreme measures once one of your cop-friends is gone. You are a fucking outcast.’  
‘Was that supposed to be an insult? Try again, idiot. I know what I am. Most likely don’t even know I’m gone yet.’

‘Then I will just continue to break you this way. Will be frustrating, but I’m patient. Maybe if I do a bit of research I will find your brother and then you will-‘  
The door to the cellar was shut closed and a key turned in the lock. The GV100 stood outside, Richard’s gun in hand.  
The man stood up, Richard was forgotten.  
‘Gavin’, he said, voice laced with poison. ‘You will open the door and you will let me out.’  
‘Never.’  
‘I will kill this man won’t you let me out.’  
‘That he is alive is the only reason I didn’t shoot you yet. Kill him, you are dead. I don’t care for deactivation because no one will ever notice. There are the cop’s fingerprints on it and yours. They will figure something out. There are no consequences for me, but you decide between death and prison. Some sick fucker like you wouldn’t be dedicated enough to choose death. I know you, unfortunately.’

The man stayed silent at that and looked towards Richard, but Gavin was to be proven right. ‘Hey, dumbass, can you crawl to the door?’  
‘I will try.’ Richard knew the android had his torturer under control with the gun, so he laid flat on his back and pushed himself to the light, hoping to put as little strain as possible on his legs. It still hurt, a few times he screamed because of it and it took him forever. But he managed to get to the door, exhausted from the few metres.  
The android unlocked the door again and helped pulling him outside. The criminal thankfully knew defeat when he saw it and didn’t intervene. Richard leaned against the next wall while the GV locked the door again and concentrated on breathing. ‘Call the police. Ask for Connor and Hank. Send them the coordinates. Maybe a safe passage over here… I’m going to take a nap now. I’m so tired.’  
‘Hey, stay with me now, meatbag. You lost a lot of blood. That’s why you feel so exhausted. Try to stay awake, okay? How should I explain all of this? I need you to do the magic police shit, you hear me?’  
‘Hmm-hmm.’


	4. Chapter 4

Richard felt that he was awake even before he managed to open his eyes. Everything was aching terribly and felt numb. Painkillers, he thought, as the memories started to come back. No wonder he felt like a truck had run him over: It was difficult to find a spot that had not been… No, it was over, right? Richard finally opened his eyes, taking in a foreign ceiling. The light had been dimmed to a minimum, pleasant to the eye that had accommodated to a dark cell. Next was the smell. Clinical, the smell of iodine and disinfection-spray. He was at a hospital. One might think a Detective would have figured that out faster.

He looked around with his eyes first, fearing pain, headache or worse when he moved his head. But there was only so much to be seen this way. A little palm tree in the far corner, a picture – this weird modern art with swirls of colour. Some Android’s forehead, LED a deep red. Nothing out of the ordinary. Wait.

‘Hank?’ His voice was impossibly quiet and hoarse, and he finally decided to turn his head in the machine’s direction. As expected, there was dizziness and a stinging pain. But both calmed down once he lay motionless again. He recognised the android the same time he spoke: ‘Nope. Wrong again. You aren’t very good with names, are you?’  
‘GV100?’  
‘Oh, you remember? It’s Gavin, though.’  
‘Couldn’t know. I mean, he called you that, but… Never mind.’  
He raised a hand to scratch his temple that somehow itched like a mosquito bite the size of his palm. The android jumped to his feet, grabbing his wrist. ‘You don’t want to do that.’  
‘Why?’  
‘You are wounded, remember? It’s normal to itch, but you would make it worse.’  
He let go of his arm, embarrassed as it seemed. Could androids be embarrassed?  
‘What are you doing here, Gavin?’

‘Well, you fell unconscious before the police arrived. Mostly you stayed that way. But as soon as there was commotion you came back, constantly dipping in and out. Whenever you were more conscious than unconscious you mumbled something like ‘the android stays with me’. Well, no one knew what you meant, I mean, I was just some random bot you met, and I had your weapon. You were wounded and I had trapped a human in a cell. It sure looked different than it had been to your colleagues. Guess your mumblings saved me a bullet.  
Your brother, Connor was it? He seemed to get it and said he was sure to hell you didn’t mean Hank. He sent me with you. So, I spend the last six hours watching you getting patched up again and then I awkwardly sat here, waiting for you to wake up. Well, saved me from explaining everything.  
I’m gonna call your brother now.’

‘Why?’  
‘He told me to. Also, he is your brother, shouldn’t he be here instead of some random android?’  
Richard groaned at that. ‘Great, I nearly die and still he won’t let me alone.’  
‘Oh, come on, you lost a lot of blood, you weren’t about to die. Don’t get overly dramatic here.’  
‘Hey, if I am, I might get a bit more time off the job. Then I can whine about not having anything to do and get back early. That would bring back my good reputation after I destroyed it by walking right into a trap.’  
‘You are making no sense right now.’  
‘I’m making sense to _me_.’  
The android snorted at that, but established a connection to the cop’s brother.

‘Yeah, he’s awake.’ Richard watched Gavin talking away. He had been cleaned, but wore no clothes, showing the white chassis instead of the imitation of human skin. He talked into the air, looking weird without a phone, but he guessed an android didn’t needed that, being a machine himself. Still weird. ‘What? Why wouldn’t he want to see you?’ Gavin looked Richard in the eye, then away, listening to Connor probably.  
‘Okay, you guys have a weird as phck relationship, just some outsider’s opinion. Hey, dipshit, he asks if you want to see him.’  
Richard wanted to nod but remembered the motion sickness. ‘Yeah, I want to see him.’  
Gavin informed Connor, who assured to be there as fast as possible.

‘I’m not even going to ask’, Gavin commented.  
‘It’s me. I’m the weird one. Well, he is weird too, but in another direction. He is overly social, whereas I, well I’ve drawn the short one at that. But it’s okay, I for once really want to see him. And he would be worried sick if I didn’t let him at least get a look at, well, this.’ Richard motioned to his bandaged body.

‘Erm… Should I leave then? I mean, if you’d rather be alone, that’s okay, I can go.’  
‘What?’ Richard needed a moment to connect the dots. As he spoke again, he looked seriously confused with himself. ‘No. You are okay. You can stay. Okay, that sounded terrible. I don’t feel what I normally feel around people with you. Okay, that was even worse. I acknowledge you as people of course and-‘  
‘Let me stop you there.. I understand what you mean. I will stay.’  
‘But only if you want to. You are free to go if you want.’  
‘Go where? Back to the dump? No thank you. I will stay with you, at least until you are out of the hospital. Being at least partly responsible for all of this and so on…’

It only took a few more minutes until there was a knock on the door and Connor barged in with Hank, who thought to close the door behind them again.  
‘Rich!’ The twin almost ran to the bed, wanting to hug his brother but struggled with himself to not do it. There were just too many wounds. ‘Oh god, it’s good to see you. When I saw you in that cellar, I-‘  
‘I’m alright, Connor. Give me a few weeks, I’m as good as new.’  
‘Like hell you are’, Gavin muttered, attracting the attention of both Connor and Hank.  
Immediately Connor turned. ‘Hi. I’m Connor, I’m his brother, and this is Hank, my partner.’  
‘Yeah, I know, we talked on the phone.’  
Richard chuckled. ‘His name’s Gavin. He showed me where to find our fugitive and helped me trap him in the end.’ The android looked at him, disbelievingly, but Connor didn’t seem to notice.  
‘Oh! Then I have to thank you Gavin!’ He took the androids hand to shake it. ‘You both saved my brother and the case!’  
Gavin didn’t know what to say. Both of that was a lie. Or at least a different version of reality. It was his fault the Detective ended up where he was now in the first place. Thankfully he didn’t have to say anything as Connor simply continued talking, this time with his brother.

‘You have to tell me everything!’  
‘Con, can’t the interrogation wait until I’m better? Don’t worry, you’ll get your report as soon as I get a keyboard under my hands, you know me.’  
‘I’m not asking for a report, I just want to know what happened.’  
‘Well, I went over to the Cyberlife dump, this android helped me find our suspect. He offered to be my backup. Something went wrong and I was captured by him. Gavin managed to free me and push him in the cell, doubling as an accomplice. Nothing else to say about that.’

Gavin simply stared at the man in the hospital bed. Why was he covering him? Why fabricating that story? Why taking care none of his crimes and involvement would be known? He would have to ask once Connor left. And he did, after the cop’s brother wished him to get well soon and that he would send him some work if he felt like it.

Richard simply sighed. ‘That might sound weird now. But I want you as my partner. Can’t be that if there is an ongoing investigation on your person.’  
Excuse me?’  
‘I want you as my partner. Detectives are supposed to have one, but I couldn’t keep anyone by my side for long. I think with you it could be different. And you would have a place to stay.’  
'With you?’  
’Or in the precinct if you want. Some androids like that… It… it would only be an offer of course. You don’t have to.’  
'You know I’m no police bot, right?’  
'You told me you were a prototype scrapped for the RK series. That can only mean you have similar abilities. And I believe you could download something that would make you qualified for the job.’  
'I… guess.’  
'As I said, just an offer. But I… I don’t know. Somehow, I was sure I could trust you. I never had any doubts on that.’  
It was quiet after that, a silence filled by thoughts.

'I think it’s worth a try.’


End file.
